"We will not allow Tamil Nadu to use surplus Cauvery water," says Karnataka CM Yediyurappa
Bengaluru, Feb 22: The Karnataka government will not allow Tamil Nadu to use surplus water from the inter-state Cauvery river and will take strong measures to protect the state's interests, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said on Monday, amid concerns regarding river interlinking project being undertaken by neighbouring state.
While the state government has decided to file objections before the Centre against the project, opposition parties in Karnataka-Congress and JD(S)-too opposed Tamil Nadu's move.
The Tamil Nadu government on Sunday laid the foundation for the first phase of the Rs 14,400 crore Cauvery-Vaigai-Gundar river interlinking project, aimed at diverting over 6,000 cubic ft of surplus water to drier areas in southern districts.
"We will not allow it....there is no use by just giving statements, for no reason we will allow Tamil Nadu or others to use surplus water, we will take strong measures, necessary measures are being taken," Yediuyurappa told reporters here in response to a question.
Asked whether he will be calling an all-party meeting on the issue, he said, "we have not thought about it yet."
Karnataka Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi, who held a meeting with the state's legal team on inter-state water dispute in Delhi on Sunday, had said the state will apprise the Centre of its concern over Tamil Nadu's river interlinking project, which is aimed at utilising surplus Cauvery water.
Jarkiholi, who is likely to meet Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Monday, had said that the state will take all steps to protect its interests and had also indicated about the government holding an all-party meeting to seek their opinion.
Karnataka is of the stand that after ensuring 177.25 tmc feet of water to Tamil Nadu in a normal year at Biligundlu water gauging centre, the rest belongs to the state, which includes its share of 284.75 tmc feet and surplus water available.
The 262 km-long project envisages diverting surplus water in Cauvery to Gundar river through a canal and the first of the three phases will cover about 118 km, Tamil Nadu has said, adding Cauvery, South Vellar, Vaigai and Gundar rivers will be interlinked in this major intra-state water project.
Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan too said, there will be no compromise on protecting Karnataka's water interest. The state would file its "objections" to the centre regarding Tamil Nadu's project and would do everything possible to stop it, he said.
According to a statement by his office, he also made it clear that the government was committed to the completion of the Mekedatu drinking project across Cauvery in Karnataka during its tenure, despite Tamil Nadu's objections, and all the necessary measures have been taken in this regard.
Mekedatu is a Multipurpose (drinking and power) project, which involves building a balancing reservoir, near Kanakapura in Ramanagaram district.
Tamil Nadu has been vehemently opposing this project, raising apprehensions that the state will be affected if the project takes shape.
Leader of Opposition and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah condemned Tamil Nadu's move to take up the river interlinking project by "illegally" utilizing 45 tmc of Cauvery water and urged the Chief Minister of that state to stop it immediately.
In a tweet, the Congress leader also asked the Karnataka Chief Minister to question the project in the Supreme Court, and write to his Tamil Nadu counterpart asking him to drop the project.
In a series of tweets, anther former Chief Minister and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy claimed the centre was giving financial assistance to the project and expressed surprise that it did not come to the notice of the state government, as he warned the ruling BJP against any injustice to the state on Cauvery issue.
Noting that Tamil Nadu government had been opposing the state's Mekedatu project as it will not get surplus water if the dam comes up, he warned against the neighboring state staking claim on the surplus water during distress.
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Modi govt rattled by Rahul’s Great Nicobar visit; project concerns need Parliament debate: Cong
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Sunday flagged in detail concerns related to ecology, tribal rights, transparency and security, over the Great Nicobar project, and asserted that these considerations must be debated in a parliamentary forum.
The opposition party claimed that the Modi government is "rattled" and in damage control mode after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's visit to Great Nicobar last week.
In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "The Modi Government, clearly in damage control mode after the hugely impactful visit of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, to Great Nicobar on April 28 2026, issued a press note on the Great Nicobar Island Development Project three days later."
This press note does not address any of the serious concerns that have been raised on it by local affected communities, environmentalists, anthropologists, academics, civil society experts and other professionals, Ramesh said.
"These concerns had already been conveyed in detail by me to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests & Climate Change on September 10, 2024 and in a follow-up on September 27, 2024," the former environment minister said.
During his visit to Great Nicobar, Gandhi last week alleged that the Great Nicobar project at Campbell Bay in Andaman and Nicobar Islands was "one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against the natural and tribal heritage of the country".
The government on May 1 released a detailed statement with answers to FAQs (frequently asked questions).
"The Great Nicobar Project is a strategic initiative to strengthen India's presence in the Andaman Sea. It seeks to balance port-led growth with calibrated environmental safeguards. Protection of indigenous communities remains central to its planning," the government statement had said.
"The project combines strategic, economic, and ecological priorities. This ensures that development is sustainable, inclusive, and aligned with national interests," it had said.
In his four-page detailed statement, Ramesh spelt out the key concerns over the Great Nicobar project.
Flagging ecological concerns, Ramesh said the Great Nicobar is unique and distinctly different from all other islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group.
"The Government's claim that only 1.82% of the total land of the island group is being used for the project is irrelevant and misleading. It ignores the ecological and biological richness of the Great Nicobar ecosystem, which is unique both in the island group and in the world," he said.
"Galathea Bay, the site of the port, is unequivocally a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) is a site where port construction is not allowed. As per records of the Zoological Survey of India, Galathea Bay is home to more than 20,000 coral colonies, a key marker of a CRZ-1a categorisation. Similarly, the beach here is the most important nesting site of the Giant Leatherback turtle in the Northern Indian Ocean," Ramesh said.
The recently concluded turtle nesting season saw record turtle nesting at Galathea Bay, he pointed out.
Ramesh alleged that institutions like the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) were literally coerced to play a key role in the environmental clearance and related process for the project.
"These very institutions have now been awarded projects for biodiversity research and monitoring in Great Nicobar. There is a clear conflict of interest here," he argued.
In addition, a couple of reputed and independent-minded institutions that have been very critical of the project have been blacklisted by the Modi government, he said.
Similar is the case with the high-powered committee (HPC) constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the matter of the challenge to the project's environmental clearance granted, he said.
All the HPC's members either represented the project proponents or agencies which granted the clearances, Ramesh said.
He said the proposal for compensatory afforestation in Haryana is a travesty of ecological principles.
Flagging tribal rights concerns, Ramesh said the Nicobarese Tribal community has expressed concerns multiple times about the project and its impact on their forests, rights, and way of life.
"In November 2022, they withdrew the NoC they had granted for forest diversion saying that they were rushed to sign by concealing the extent of tribal areas to be affected by the project. Representatives of the Nicobarese community also stated in a recent press conference that they were being forced to voluntarily surrender their land for the project," he pointed out.
The claims stand even more exposed in the matter of the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), that lives a life of hunting and gathering in the deep forests of Great Nicobar, Ramesh said.
The Shompen are a primarily uncontacted community and there are no non-Shompen speakers of their language, he pointed out.
"It is not clear then how the project authorities have taken their informed consent, which is both ethically appropriate and legally mandated," Ramesh said.
Pointing out that government release has claimed that the airport in Great Nicobar will eventually handle 10 million passengers annually, Ramesh said this appears prima facie to be a huge over-estimation given that the current airport at Port Blair handles 1.8 million passengers annually.
"The deliberations of the Forest Advisory Committee for granting the project's forest clearance were not made public. The report submitted by the High-Powered Committee that examined the clearance granted to the project was kept confidential. The field report prepared by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) that pronounced the status of the site of the port from CRZ-1A to CRZ-1B overnight, remains confidential," he pointed out.
Ramesh also flagged security concerns about the project, saying no less a person than the courageous former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) himself has argued in an article that "the security capabilities of ANC (Andaman & Nicobar Command) need to be addressed separately and must have no linkage with the developments contemplated for GNI (Great Nicobar Island)."
"There is thus no need to link India's legitimate security imperatives with the so-called 'development project' - complete with a township, high-end tourist infrastructure, and large transshipment terminal - that the Modi Government is intent on bulldozing through and on which it is now trying to muzzle genuine and much-needed debate hiding behind "security considerations", he said.
"These considerations must, at the very least, be discussed and debated in a Parliamentary forum," Ramesh said.
